Word: apparatus
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...They are elected to their posts only after careful screening and final Politburo assent. When a resolution is presented, they automatically approve it, for they know that the Politburo has already accepted it. Yet they perform a significant if largely ceremonial function. The rulers of a dictatorship need an apparatus that seems to confirm their legitimacy, a formal link to the party rank and file, and a sounding board, however limited, for their pronouncements. For the leadership, a Party Congress is an occasion to defend its record, assess the country's condition and chart the course ahead...
Much the same applies to the next layer of Soviet leaders?the 150 or so party first secretaries of the regions and republics. More than half of them have no direct experience whatsoever in managing economic enterprises. They generally have spent most of their lives in the party apparatus, which the University of Toronto's Lewis Feuer aptly describes as "the ambitious mediocracy." In party ranks, advancement is awarded most often to the wily and tough, not to the thoughtful or the innovative...
...when the defendant is released the next morning, comes to trial five months later and beats the rap. I mean when the system works as planned and the man ends up in jail. The police function only makes sense when jutted against an intelligent court system and a corrections apparatus that gives a leg up to those criminals who can still get their minds together to make what society calls an honest living. All three components of law enforcement are defective. But my strong impression is that, in Washington at least, the police come closer than either of the others...
Another useful section describes some of the computer diagnostic and history-taking apparatus that the MGH is now using...
Then a flurry of editorials stressed that the party must be rid of "monsters and ghosts." More teachers were hauled up to account-and the principal himself. In August, the Cantonese city and provincial party apparatus came under attack-and collapsed. Looking higher and higher for leadership as each layer of authority was discredited, the students continued to ferret out monsters and argue over the meaning of directives emanating from Peking. Advice to "destroy the Four Olds" (old ideas, old culture, old customs, old habits) sent Dai and his friends roaming through Canton, smashing anything that looked faintly bourgeois...